The high cost of mass migration
It has become an article of faith among Remainers that Brexit made the UK an inhospitable place for foreign nationals. Some even predicted a mass exodus from the country, all part of the economic disaster that was supposed to be the inevitable consequence of leaving the European Union.
How, then, to account for the fact that net migration to the UK has risen to a record high? The figure has reached an extraordinary 504,000 in the year to June, far surpassing levels seen before Brexit. The increase is the result of a surge in visas for foreign nationals to live, study and work in the UK, as well as the large numbers who have moved to the country on the various resettlement schemes for Ukraine, Afghanistan and Hong Kong.
There has been a great deal of political focus on illegal migration – which is itself at unacceptable levels – but, arguably, legal migration presents just as much of a problem for the Government. The points-based system has been criticised by some Tories, who say the current rules make it far too easy for businesses to import workers from abroad rather than hiring domestically. Although large parts of the university sector are sustained by the fee income from foreign students, they do not necessarily leave after they have completed their studies or even finish their course at all.
It is hardly surprising that there are now calls for a crackdown. Many voters will be astonished that it is possible for international students to bring dependents to the UK, for example, a state of affairs that is clearly open to abuse. Indeed, it has to be asked whether all this migration is really as beneficial to the economy as is sometimes claimed. Hundreds of thousands of people are being allowed to enter at a time when millions of British people of working age are not in employment. Growing the size of the population might mechanically increase GDP, but the key to sustained improvements in national prosperity is boosting productivity – and businesses’ continued reliance on a steady supply of cheap foreign labour may make that harder to achieve.
While the UK was still in the EU, the Conservatives could deflect criticism of their migration policies by laying the blame at the door of free movement. They no longer have that excuse. How will they explain to the millions of voters who backed Brexit on the basis that it would result in lower migration why, in fact, the opposite has occurred?